Best First Hours

penny arcade rain slick

A few weeks ago, I acquired Breath of Death VII: The Beginning, Cthulhu Saves the World, and all three episodes of Penny Arcade Adventures
for eight bucks on Steam. It seemed like a steal at the time: five
brief RPG comedies for less than I spend on my daily commute.

I dropped Breath and Cthulhu after a few hours.
Zeboyd’s nutty tributes to ‘80s JRPGs had their moments, but not enough
to excuse dull battles, random encounters, and big empty dungeons.

The first two Penny Arcade games weren’t much better. My disgust for their fetch quest campaign structure smothered my fondness for the Mario RPG-style battles.

So when I saw that Penny Arcade’s Whatever 3 was the result of
a Zeboyd/Penny Arcade team-up, I braced myself for some whole new
amalgam of repulsive game elements. It turned out to be a roundly
enjoyable seven-hour adventure, one that almost excuses the twelve hours
I slogged through the other four games in the bundle. Almost.